While in later life Koechlin was in his compositions to become
more the philosopher these two sonatas from the teens of the last
century are more piercingly romantic than profoundly intellectual.
They were written in the depths of the Great War and each is in
four movements.

The Violin Sonata is
revealed as rather pastoral, poised, emotionally direct and
fragile with a liquid swirling dance-like Scherzo.
Its Adagio suggests far-glimmering distances. The final
Allegro molto moderato is classically inclined and
sings innocently before rising to a bell-thronged passion.
The whole reminds me strongly of the dreamy aspects of the
John Ireland Second Sonata and the early sonatas of Herbert
Howells.

The Viola Sonata is
subdued as befits the instrument's character. Koechlin wrote
of his music of that time that it was an expression of his
inclination for good and the ideal and even of sorrow. If
the Violin Sonata is about open spaces and the sun, this work
inhabits a dun landscape, clouded or dark and prone to sadness.
There is a devilish quick-chafing Scherzo for contrast
- a real witches' ride of a piece with resonances with the
central movement in the Bax Viola Sonata. The Adagio
represents a softly sustained and chimingly peaceful exhaustion.
The finale is, like that of the Violin Sonata, the longest
movement of the piece at 12:36 by comparison with the violin
work's finale of 13:30. The Viola Sonata's finale at last
finds the sunlight but seems to do so in a daze of sorrow
that clears only gradually. Here is poignancy laced with pain
before a collapse in one long slow-motion fade into the arms
of consolation. The dedicatee of the work is none other than
Darius Milhaud who also gave the premiere.

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